Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday February 06, 2012 @09:32AM
from the say-hello-to-the-elder-things dept.

First time accepted submitter Cyberax writes "After 30 years of drilling and weeks of media attention the Antarctic underground lake Vostok has been reached by Russian scientists (translated article). Deep drilling in the vicinity of Vostok Station in Antarctica began in the 1970s, when the existence of the reservoir was not yet known. Scientists are beginning paleoclimatic studies and further exploration of the lake will continue in 2013-2014."

How can you call a movie from 1982 a classic? That's only 30 years ago.

"Classic" refers to the quality of a movie, not it's age. For example, though I was under-impressed with it, I recognised that "Star Wars" was probably a classic movie within minutes of seeing it 30-odd years ago (35?). I gather that it's been popular since, and there are even rumours of a sequel in the works.

Get off my lawn!

Is that a reference to a classic movie from around 10 years ago? I believe that it is rumoured to have starred C

Or we could just teach the Norwegians to shoot straight, and maybe take some helicopter flying lessons.

Bullets would have had no effect anyway. It was a lifeform based on completely separate cells which work together and could be assigned to any role needed.

Bullets would have torn a hole in the macro shape, maybe killed a few hundred cells at the impact point, but the remaining cells would have just knitted the hole back together. The only effect bullets would have had on what was shaped like a dog would have been the momentum of the bullet causing the dog to get knocked around.

It's why they had to resort to fire because you needed to kill the each cell individually. Poison might have worked as well.

I'm assuming you are referring to Ulrich Thomsen [imdb.com]? There is one scene where he is speaking danish rather than norwegian, but we Scandinavians tend to understand each other pretty well, so this is not a goof per se. It might very well happen in real life as well that a Danish person speaks danish to a Norwegian; in fact it happened to me less than two weeks ago, and I had no problem understanding her. The rest of the Norwegians are well-known Norwegian actors, who speak norwegian correctly.

Umm... you may want to read the controversies about this on Wikipedia's page on Lake Vostok.

Everyone's been screaming at the Russians that they're contaminating everything by using freon and kerosene in the borehole to keep it from freezing over again. 60 tons of that crap has been dumped into that borehole. TONS. They have literally filled the bore-hole with kerosene.

The Russians' defense is that when they break through, water will rush up, re-freeze, and plug the borehole to avoid any contaminants gett

The lake might be absolutely sterile. At this moment, drilling passed 173 meters through the ice formed from the lake water. But examining lake kerns has shown no more than 2-3 cells per milliliter, and even those cells could have gotten into samples while transported or in the lab

Measuring 250 km (160 mi) long by 50 km (30 mi) wide at its widest point, and covering an area of 15,690 km2 (6,060 sq mi), it is similar in area to Lake Ontario, but with over three times the volume. The average depth is 344 m (1,129 ft). It has an estimated volume of 5,400 km3 (1,300 cu mi).[4] The lake is divided into two deep basins by a ridge. The liquid water over the ridge is about 200 m (700 ft), compared to roughly 400 m (1,300 ft) deep in the northern basin and 800 m (2,600 ft) deep

My understanding was that the Russians were using a method that was likely to cause contamination, despite pleas by western agencies for them to either a) hold off until better tech was developed or b) funding was established to allow them to use (donated) already-developed tech from the west that would be less contaminating?

I'd guess since this is happening roughly according to their original schedule, the answer is "no" which would be tragic.

Nope. The lake had almost been reached in 1998 but drilling was stopped to ensure that there would be no contamination. Several years were spent to devise a good solution for the problem of contamination. So the drilling has been resumed only in 2005 when the international community decided that it's safe enough.

They're using a well filled with kerosene and freon to keep bacterial contamination away. Also, they're using sterilized parts without grease to minimize places where bacteria could hide.

My understanding was that the Russians were using a method that was likely to cause contamination, despite pleas by western agencies for them to either a) hold off until better tech was developed or b) funding was established to allow them to use (donated) already-developed tech from the west that would be less contaminating?

I'd guess since this is happening roughly according to their original schedule, the answer is "no" which would be tragic.

According to the Google translation of the article the drilling was put on hold while the technology was developed at the St. Petersburg Institute. Western nations approved the Russian proposals after that at a 2003 meeting.

Contamination of the water has been a concern and apparently according to TFA it has been addressed."Scientific research drilling in the area started in 1989 and the lake's existence was confirmed in 1996. But efforts to reach its surface were suspended two years later amid fears that the process could contaminate the waters.

After developing new techniques in an attempt to ease environmental concerns, attempts to drill down through the deep ice sheet to the lake's surface resumed."

According to the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095193/Lake-Vostok-Russian-scientists-drilling-alien-Antarctic-lake-buried-20m-years.html) this morning, the Russian team has been out of contact for a week. An American scientist says they're probably just busy.
Busy incubating aliens, more likely.

In an ordinary news source, I'd call it "mis-translation". For the Daily Fail, it's more likely a deliberate misreading for the purpose of sensationalism. The line between that and an outright lie would is unclear, and both are the Daily Fail's daily bread and butter.

and how so few people/countries seem to be taking lifestyle-changing action against it, they wasted 30 years when in a few years or so, they might have the ice melt enough for them to reach the lake by just tapping on a thin sheet of it with the back of a pencil...

Or, just as short-sighted (and more common) is the idea that somehow that bit of matter got stuck in time and has remained impervious to the forces of random genetic mutation and evolution through the intervening years. Same idea comes across when we land on some asteroid, or explore some new bit of Mars, and loudly declare that it is a sample of matter left over from the birth of the solar system, or some such huey, as if it popped through a portal in time. The forces of nature still act on such things, even if they've been isolated from more large-scale interactions.

Lake Vostok might (we think) have been sealed off for a very long time, but that doesn't mean it's a glimpse into the past, but, rather, a glimpse into a different version of the present.

On the other hand, the rate of change of some systems is significantly slower than for many other systems. The obvious example is comparing the surface of the moon to the surface of the earth -- the earth had at least the same cratering events as the moon but the moon still displays a surface similar to what it was 2 billion or more years ago. Yes the surface of the moon is the present day surface but unlike the earth it is little changed and so is a good replica of the moon in the past. Geologically the same goes for those asteroids, Mars, etc. and biologically for Lake Vostok and many other isolated biological environments -- there is less competition and influx of new "innovations" from the larger outside world on the organisms there so the biologists say that the living things there have changed less than those in more open environments. The present is not the past but some places in the present are a lot like the past, indistinguishably so.

Not much. In the time since the Earth formed, it's managed to vacuum up just about all of the debris that would intersect its (and the Moon's) orbit. So there are impacts since a billion years ago on the Moon but very few compared to what happened back then.

No erosion from temperature changes?

Again, not a lot. due to its composition, there's not a ton of erosion due to temperature changes. There's some, but not nearly enough to level the surface like an atmosphere does.

The goal here is not to see any living organisms there as a portal to the past. It is to see any organisms who have manged to survive in an airless, water-filled lake buried under 3 miles of ice for millions of years. It is fairly likely that, if there are any living organisms there, they're going to have evolved in some pretty interesting ways.

While I agree with your point about biology - living things strongly couple to each other in remarkably complex ways - asteroids and debris on the rocky planets are (compared to Earth) completely pristine due to the inertness of their environment, and the processes they are subject to are blissfully easy to model and use in interpretation.

Lake Vostok might (we think) have been sealed off for a very long time, but that doesn't mean it's a glimpse into the past, but, rather, a glimpse into a different version of the present.

That is very true; however, if the environment of Lake Vostok hasn't changed in x eons (and it likely hasn't under all that ice) then environmental causes for evolution won't have occurred. It is changes in the environment that cause most "directional" evolution. Without that all you have after a while is random genetic drift. Physically cockroaches look the same today as they did millions of years ago because they are a pretty darn good-design that can't be improved upon for any of the environments that

Physically cockroaches look the same today as they did millions of years ago because they are a pretty darn good-design that can't be improved upon for any of the environments that have come and gone since.

While their carapaces may look the same there could be (and probably are) many substantial changes at the cellular and/or organ level.

Chances are the cockroach has changed in minor ways- because their environment has. But the fact is- they were near perfect design for the niche to begin with- they haven't had to change much.

We know only that their gross skeletal anatomy has not changed much. At the cellular level they may have changed quite a lot due to environmental changes such as new viruses, bacteria, and environmental toxins.

Same with Vostok- if an organism is of near perfect design for that environment- they could very well stay

The lake is at sea level and tests confirm that it's unsalinated. If there was any water flow, it would have to be bidirectional which would introduce sea water (else no biology could "wash in"). Plus, under-ice mapping confirms that it's cut off from any other water.

Unless there is a connection somewhere to the ocean or surface water of some sort, i believe the only thing they are going to find at that site is water.

There has already been some evidence found for life in the lake from ice extracted during drilling (keep in mind that they've already drilled some considerable way into the upper, frozen layers of the lake).

I think that the linked article said that they were drilling along the shoreline of the lake somewhere.

Been digging since 1974. That's 344 feet a year, or a foot per day. Hell, *I* could have dug quicker than that!

Or maybe they just had lots of problems, costs, setbacks, etc. associated with a 13,000 foot-long drill through a substance that nobody has ever drilled 13,000 down through?

It's also in the middle of the Antarctic, just about, and almost 900 miles from the Scott-Amundsen base at the South Pole. It's where the coldest temperature on earth has been measured, a whopping -128F (-89C). I'd love to see anyone dig a foot *that* day!:)

They almost reached the lake in 1998...stopped to find a way of drilling without contaminating

Try this:

Go to the top of Rees Peak in the Rockies near Flagstaff, ArizonaArrange the temperature to never get above -10C and go down to -80CDo not get supplied regularly, and not at all in WinterStrip all the moisture from the airIncrease the Wind speed so that it always blows at a minimum of 10mph and often goes up to 60mph...and see how quickly you can drill...

How do you keep a hole 13,100 ft deep melted when the average temperature in summer is -30C (-22F), and in winter -65C (-85F)?The warmest it ever gets is about -12C (10F) - that's a record by the way, the warmest ever measured at Vostok station.

It's not exactly a resort, you know:

The warmest recorded temperature at Vostok is -12.2 C (10.0 F), which occurred on 11 January 2002.[10]The coldest month was August 1987 with a mean temperature of -75.4 C (-103.7 F) and the warmest month was December 1989 with mean of -28 C (-18 F).[9]In addition to the extremely cold temperatures, other factors make Vostok one of the most difficult places on Earth for human habitation:* An almost complete lack of moisture in the air.* An average windspeed of 5 m/s (18 km/h) (11 mph), sometimes rising to as high as 27 m/s (97 km/h)(60 mph).* An acute lack of oxygen because of its high altitude at 3,488 meters (11,444 ft).* A higher ionization of the air.* A polar night that lasts approximately 130 days, from mid April to late August,[13] including 80 continuous days of civil polar night (i.e. too dark to read, during which the Sun is over 6 degrees below the horizon.)

They were using kerosene originally to keep it from freezing. I do not believe the ice temperature is as cold as the ambient air either. Snow is a decent insulator. Ice maybe not so much though. The permafrost in the Arctic does not extend down 13000 feet (although it is not pure water). There must be some radiant heat from the earth. Generally temperatures increase 3 degrees C for every 100 meters deep.

There's no consideration of permafrost since they haven't hit the ground yet, and they don't plan to do so. They're drilling through the miles of ice laying on top of the lake. The ground is under the lake, which is under the ice. Radiant heat doesn't have any effect on this operation since, again, they're not drilling through ground.

Well, they were keeping the well thawed using kerosene, which is lighter than ice and water, so presumably the weight of the ice sheet would force the water up the well, pushing out the kerosene until it reaches equilibrium, which would be somewhere beneath the surface of the ice sheet. Not sure exactly at what depth that would be. I'll let somebody else do the math.

Dissolved gases could certainly come out of solution as the column of water rises up the well. There have also bee suggestions that the